Cash And Company

June 2, 1985|By Dean Johnson of the Sentinel Staff

Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kris Krisofferson, Highwayman (Columbia FC 40056): On the album cover, the four country-music big-shots look like so many Mount Rushmore-type icons. Danger, I thought: The music may be just as stony -- stiff, safe, boring.

Not so -- not on Highwayman anyway. Reportedly, this started out as a Johnny Cash LP. Then some of his buddies dropped by the studio to see what he was up to -- and joined him at the microphones. Besides the contributions of Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings, there is also help from Johnny Rodriguez and Paul Davis.

What makes the album so special, besides the charismatic Cash, is the material. It's thematic in a sense -- about wandering -- and takes its cue from the title song, a sort of history of adventurers written by Jimmy Webb. Nelson takes the verse about a highwayman, Kristofferson one about a sailor, Jennings a dam builder and Cash a starship pilot.

Ed Bruce's ''The Last Cowboy Song'' is delivered honestly and emotionally -- you know that the four believe ''another piece of America's gone'' and that they would have been at home riding with the last cowboy.

Cash and Nelson duet on the best performance, ''Jim, I Wore a Tie Today'' -- the occasion being a funeral for an old prospector. When you get up there to the streets paved with gold, they sing, ''Jim, stake a claim out for me.'' The rest: ''Big River'' is about a hurtin' romance. In the sad-funny ''Committed to Parkview'' (written by Cash), the inmates at an institution are the druggies and crazies of show business. ''Desperados Waiting for a Train'' is about getting old. ''Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)'' is a strong statement about migrant workers. In ''Welfare Line,'' down-and-outers trade life stories. Bob Seger's ''Against the Wind'' is present and not particularly noteworthy. The album ends with the John Prine-Steve Goodman black-humor piece ''The Twentieth Century Is Almost Over.''

Great performers. Great backup musicians (especially the keyboard artists). Great songwriters and great story songs. Mount Rushmore never sounded so good.